


The Young Ones Versus The Zombie Apocalypse

by moonphase9



Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: British Comedy, British Politics, Character Death, Developing Friendships, Gen, Humour, Surreal, Zombies, unspoken feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24980338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonphase9/pseuds/moonphase9
Summary: The Zombie Apocalypse has arrived in London.Will our intrepid housemates realise what danger they are in? Will they survive the night without being killed by the zombies? Will they survive each other?
Relationships: Vyv/Rick if you squint
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Young Ones Versus The Zombie Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> Tried to merge the weird humour of Young Ones in with the dark tone of the zombie apocalpyse genre.

_“Today the illness continues as...”_

“NO!”

*Click*

_“As you can see, we are witnessing ever more cases of...”_

“NOO!!”

*Click*

_“Oh God! Oh God they’re here! They’re he-!”_

“NOOO!!”

Enraged Vyvyan flung the television remote in to the TV and began to kick the filthy, ruined couch. Mike wandered into the living area and watched with some interest before enquiring what had gotten Vyvyan so distressed _this_ time.

“There’s nothing on telly except for the ruddy news! Nothing else! No ‘Top of the Pops,’ no ‘The Good Life,’ no ‘Rainbow!’ Just news, news and more news!”

“Well, well, well,” Rick bounded down the stairs and ran into the living room, disregarding the fact that he was interrupting a conversation, “have I got some **news** for you guys!”

Vyvyan let out a roar of pure, unadulterated anger before lifting up the couch and hurling it at Rick, sending the screaming couch and Rick flying into the kitchen wall. Whilst the couch fell back on to the floor looking relatively sound, Rick slowly peeled off the wall and landed on the couch unconscious, bruised and slightly bloody.

“That was very impressive!” cried Mike with genuine interest at Vyvyan’s antics as the punk sunk down into a kitchen chair his energy momentarily spent. “But all those shows you listed are shows you really hate.”

“But I hate the news **more** Mike!” he argued, “come on, you _know_ me, you know how much I hate the news. It’s all Rick’s fault, every time I watched it he would go on and on about Thatcher and her attempts of suffocating the common man from his natural anarchistic ways, and in typical Pavlovian manner I’ve come to associate the news with Rick’s incessant bull-shit, and now I hate the news as much as I hate Rick!”

“That is quite a problem,” agreed Mike, “But I’m afraid that I want to catch up with the news.” He opened up a newspaper and began to read before, “hang on...this newspaper from days ago! Where’s today’s paper?”

“The paper-boy hasn’t been around for about a week,” shrugged Vyvyan, “neither has the postman. You never noticed because you were shacked up with that girl, but we think they’ve ran off together, maybe to go live in France where no one will judge their weird relationship.”

“Maybe,” answered Mike vaguely because he wasn’t really listening, “I’m goin’ the corner shop to get a paper.”

“Pick up some vodka while you’re there,” Vyvyan took some money out of Rick’s back pocket and threw it over to Mike, “I’m gonna need it with all this ‘news’ malarkey.”

Suddenly Neil burst through the front door looking more harassed than usual. “Quick guys! Get wood! Get stuff to put behind the doors and windows! Quickly!”

“I’m sorry,” said Mike calmly, “but have we somehow gone into an alternative universe where you, Neil, suddenly start telling the rest of us what to do? Right, see I definitely need the paper; I can’t keep up without it and life with you guys is difficult and confusing enough already.”

He made to go to the front door but the wild-haired hippy stood in his way, waving his arms about his head and crying, “no Mike don’t do it! It’s crazy out there! Some seriously heavy stuff is going down. Look some lunatic even bit me,” he showed them a nasty mark on his arm that looked like it was steadily turning green, “I think they were trying to eat me but after one bite they backed off.”

“I’m not surprised,” called Vyvyan, “you probably taste like really horrible, really smelly, really off lentils.”

“You’re the only one who is even a little bit nice to me,” Neil said, ignoring Vyvyan and grabbing Mike by the shoulders, shaking him slightly, “please don’t go out there man!”

“Watch the merchandise,” Mike swept the hippy’s hands of his shoulders, “I can handle a riot. It’s par the course in this neighbourhood. I also can handle a little bite or two, the ladies tend to get a bit wild around me. It’s fine. All part the parcel when you’re as cool as I am. Now then, you need to move.”

Rick meanwhile slowly came back into consciousness, vaguely hearing the sounds of an argument, but firstly hearing someone crying. He looked about, (hoping that the weeping was from Vyvyan so that he could point and laugh at him) but then to his dismay he realised the couch was crying. He looked down at it questioningly and it explained, “Vyvyan threw me...I thought we were all friends! I put up with your horrible bottoms being on me every day; the least you could do is not throw me around!”

Rick patted it cautiously in what was a sort of comforting manner before sitting up and asking what was going on.

“Oh, Neil is keeping us all hostage.” Explained Vyvyan calmly. “He won’t let Mike out to buy the paper.”

“Really?” said Rick, that dangerous, wild-eyed glint in his eye. He stood up and began to do that strange jolting style walk up to Neil, bobbing slightly on his feet and nodding so quickly one would think he was on some sort of crack-high, “really Neil? Really? Is this what it has come down to!? Is it really?! Now you are FORCING us to stay with you? It’s bad enough that you HOIST your personality on to us every day relentlessly with your insufferable whining but now WE CAN’T EVEN LEAVE THE HOUSE?!! _How dare you!_ HOW **DARE** YOU!!”

“Great,” sighed Mike, “now you’ve got _him_ started!”

“No Rick man, you don’t get it, I’m doing this for your own good. You can’t go outside!”

“NEO-NAZI FASCIST!” Rick screamed, no longer listening to what anyone had to say for he was now being The People’s Poet, doing what he was born to do; standing on his metaphorical soap box and screeching his ill-thought out opinion over everyone else’s words, “CAPITALIST PRO-THATCHER COMMUNIST SCUM! You think this is ART? DO YOU? The pop-culturalist satirist’s proletariats have you fooled! **Fooled**! You suck from the BOR-JWAY-ZEE teat everyday like the media-mesmerised vampire whore that you are! Aesthetically challenged you now plan to make the rest of us suffer at the hands of your ludicrous whims! I WON’T LET YOU DO IT! Rebellion-quasher! Society-led, middle-class demon-spirited hate mongerer! Hoarder of the door! Spawn of Thatcherite Evil!”

“I’m sick of this,” announced Vyvyan bluntly before getting a genuine early-seventeenth century cannon out from under the kitchen sink and blowing a hole through the living room wall just behind the television.

Mike let out a little cheer and wandered through it, announcing that he’d be back in ten minutes while Neil cried out in horror.

“No you’ve doomed us all Vyv, you’ve doomed us all! Oh heavy man, heavy!”

With the hole leading the outside, the boys could now hear the endless droning of their former neighbours. “What’s the band this week?” asked Rick, “they don’t sound very good. I think we’re losing our touch.”

“It’s not a band, it’s our neighbours, it must be Christmas and they must be singing carols,” said Vyv before sticking his head out the hole and shouting, “shut up you lot! You sound bloody awful!”

“Stop it man,” whimpered Neil, “they’re attracted by sound.”

“They’ve all got their arms out in front of them,” said a bewildered Rick, “is this some sort of new dance move? They look stupid! Like a pack of brain-dead zombies!” He laughed loudly and haughtily, because Rick always loved it when he could mindlessly mock others.

Neil, being the most intelligent person in the house at this moment, finally gave up trying to convince them to listen to him and ran upstairs to his bedroom, locking the door and repeating ‘heavy’ to himself like some sort of holy mantra.

The boys watched the people outside. All of them were pale, almost green-skinned, with blank, dead eyes. They were also all heading towards Rick and Vyvyan.

“Can you see those girls coming up to me?” said Rick with pride pointing to some limping girls who ambled towards him, their deadened eyes focused on his scalp, “that’s because I am cat-nip to the ladies! In fact, that’s what I wanted to tell you about earlier...”

“I think there’s something wrong with them.”

“With who?”

“The girls. Well, everyone,” Vyvyan looked around at the encroaching hoard, “we aren’t throwing a party!” he yelled, “piss off! Look Rick they aren’t even listening. I think they’re sick or something.”

“You are such a liar Vyvyan! You’re just jealous because some sexy girls aren’t into you.” He reached out to one of the girls, a pretty blonde who was drooling heavily as she groaned the groan of the damned, put on his best charming smirk and smoothly asked, “soooo, what’s _your_ name?” He pulled her arm, which came off with a wet _POP_!

Rick stared at it without much reaction.

“There’s definitely something wrong with them!” cried Vyv running back indoors as Rick’s brain finally stopped being shell-shocked and let out an almighty, girlish shriek flinging the arm back into the crowd before running into the kitchen.

Vyvyan pulled the cannon over and aimed it at the zombies, “I fought in the English Civil War don’tchya know!” cried the cannon bravely in a very proper English accent, before spewing cannon fire on to the streets, laughing now and then in between at the destruction. Vyvyan patted it fondly, feeling a kinship with it at that moment.

Rick, meanwhile, had decided to be useful and was hiding under the kitchen table, hugging his knees and rocking backwards and forwards.

“Rick! Get over here and help me kill some of these bastards!”

Rick shook his head in response and began to suck his thumb.

“Fine,” said Vyvyan resolutely, “it’ll be just me and Canon!”

**II**

Adagio for strings began to play over the sound of the groaning infected and the booms of the canon.

“You should go son,” said the canon to Vyvyan who was leaning his forehead on it, “I can hold them back sunny-boy! Go, make something of yourself!”

“It’s not right,” cried Vyvyan, his voice breaking, “it seems so cruel, to leave you behind like this.”

“Go lad! Go!” the canon jolted to the side, knocking Vyvyan away from it. Vyvyan looked hurt, but he scrambled to his feet and ran to Rick who had turned into a gibbering idiot under the table (or rather, more of a gibbering idiot than usual.)

“It’s what I want for you,” whispered the canon, just as Adagio sweeps into its most dramatic part of the score.

“Come on filthy knickers,” yelled Vyvyan, dragging an almost catatonic Rick up the stairs and flinging him into his bedroom. Vyvyan slammed the door shut and placed Rick’s bed in front of it. “There, that should hold ‘em for a bit.”

“B-but what now?!” whimpered Rick who had come out of his shocked phase and was steadily hurtling into hysteria, “what now, what now?! WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!” He was about to shout some more but Vyv grabbed him and threw him onto the bed within a millisecond. Then he climbed on top of the sandy-haired boy and shoved a pillow over his face, making Rick thrash about futilely.

“We need to be as quiet as possible, stupid! I heard Neil saying something like that. Makes sense, they seem pretty stupid, so maybe if we are quiet they’ll forget us.”

He lifted off the pillow and Rick coughed and spluttered and took in as much air as possible. Underneath him, the blankets began to move and wriggle about. Vyvyan wasn’t shocked by much, but this action freaked him out quite a bit. “Rick! What’s up with your bed?”

Rick looked down and poked the bed causing a high pitch cockney voice to shout, “ouch! Get off me you lummox!”

“Oh god,” sighed Vyv, “don’t say the beds are now self-aware as well.” He thought anxiously of all the dirty things he had done in his own bed. It was weird to think it had been sitting there, quietly watching him abuse himself on it...

However, it wasn’t the bed, it was a rather grubby human of the female persuasion.

Vyv gaped first at her and then at Rick, who looked overwhelmingly smug all of a sudden.

“Well, well, well Vyv,” he jeered, “can’t call me a virgin anymore can you?”

“Wait?” the red-head just couldn’t wrap his brain around what was happening, “wait, you mean...you’ve lost your virginity, you’ve actually had...” he suddenly couldn’t quite say the word ‘sex,’ it stuck in his throat like a large piece of boiled egg.

“That’s right!” crowed Rick, “I’ve done the nasty, we were at it all night, hahahaha!”

Vyv grimaced, the unwanted vision of a naked, scrawny Rick flopping up and down like a pale fish dying helplessly forced its way into his mind.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” He suddenly grabbed one of Rick’s hats and began to prepare himself to vomit into it. Rick wasn’t concerned, he was too proud.

“Well it wasn’t all night,” said the girl, “more like seven minutes.”

“Seven minutes of heaven!”

Vyv looked over at the pair, her still in nothing but a bra and presumably knickers (but the lower half of her body was mercifully covered over by Rick’s blanket) and Rick on his knees looking haughtily at Vyvyan.

“It’s disgusting,” he complained before looking at the girl and asking the inevitable, “how could you? You got low self-esteem or something?”

To be fair she wasn’t much to look at. She was a bit of a female Rick really; all pale and shapeless, her bra was meant to be white but instead was covered in an array of interesting stains (‘maybe Rick helped stain them,’ an evil side of his mind told him, making him gag all over again) and her skin was covered in whiteheads and pimples and generally quite dirty too. She scratched an armpit, revealing brown stubbles of hair.

He would still do her himself though, if she asked.

“I haven’ got low self-esteem,” she sniffed, “I know I am a princess. But...I feel a bit funny.” She rubbed her head, revealing a nasty injury on her arm and looked up at Rick. She pulled a face when she saw him, “eeewww, are you the horrible sod sweating and panting on me last night?”

“Yes I am and you seemed to qwuite enjoy it at the time!” barked Rick.

“I doubt that very much, especially afterwards when you wouldn’t stop crying.” (Rick was about to yell at her, but she continued,) “What are you staring at?” she peered at Vyv who was focused on her bleeding arm.

“Oh, he’s just never seen a woman in a state of such undress before,” Rick butted in smugly feeling proud once again, “do humour him, he’s a little pervy-bum, he just can’t help it.”

“How did, uh, how did you get that injury?” Vyv ignored Rick completely, backing away from the girl slightly and feeling around for a weapon.

“Oh I dunno,” she looked at Rick, “did you bite me?”

“I most certainly did not! I’m not into all that kinky sort of stuff.”

“Maybe it was from before. I don’t know, I feel horrible and sick and poorly all at once! Just let me alone to sleep again will you? Be good lads and I’ll let you do whatever you want to my vulnerable and pliant body if you give me a few hours kip.”

Rick stared with wide eyes for a mere moment before bounding over to Vyv and whispering excitedly, “my god she’s practically a _whore_! What do you say? We should let her have her rest, save her energy for later!”

“We need to get her out of here you numpty,” sneered Vyvyan, even if the thought of imminent sex did make his lower stomach swoop and his cock suddenly twitch in interest. “I think she’s one of them.”

“What? Ok she’s a bit of a rough diamond but...”

“No, the bite. Haven’t you watched any of the Hammer Horror films? She’s saying she’s ill and has a bite...what if what they have is some sort of infection? We should get her out of here. Hey you” he barked at the girl suddenly, “get out! Now! Sod off!”

Stomping over to the bed he dragged it away from the door, even with the girl still on it, before ripping off the blanket, revealing her wearing her odd socks and a pair of knickers so filthy they rivalled Rick’s and pubic hair sticking out of the sides.

“Oh god!” recoiled the punk before dragging the poor girl out of bed and opening the bedroom door.

“No you lunatic!” shrieked Rick, feeling very attached to his first ever lay, “you can’t leave her out there with those things! What are we? _Tories_??”

“Yes I can,” argued Vyv, ignoring the ‘Tories’ comment, “she’s gonna be one of them, I know it!” He wrestled with the girl, finding her shockingly strong as she screamed.

“You are just jealous because I got to have sex!” cried Rick, louder than the girls’ screams which were growing increasingly deranged and animalistic. Froth began to bubble from her mouth. “Your own petty neuwosis around a pefwectly ordinawy coupling between two consenting adults is hardly excuse enough for muwder Vyvyan!”

“You cock-sucking filth mongerer!” spat the girl in a suddenly very demonic voice. Blood soaked frothy spittle began to pour from her mouth and her eyes began to roll and she continued to curse a struggling Vyvyan, “I’ll eat your fucking heart!”

“Oh my god!” Vyv heard Rick squeak just before he managed to put his heavy steel toed boots to good use and booted the girl out of the room and into the hallway.

She let out an inhuman shriek and flew towards the door but he managed to slam it shut in time. The door thudded as she fell into it.

Vyv turned to Rick and saw him standing with a clenched fist at his heart.

“Good god that was scary, wasn’t it?!”

Ignoring the imbecile, Vyvvan pulled the bed in front of the door once more. “We need to get into a better hiding place. She was strong, she could smash through this ruddy door if she puts her mind to it.”

“But what happened? She was pwetty ordinawy and then she just,” Rick made a few strange gestures mimicking her vomiting up the frothy bloody substance.

“I dunno, she’s not the same as all them lot from downstairs. We need to get somewhere safe. Safer than here.”

Rick, after a few moments, joined Vyvyan on the bed. “Gosh,” he said slowly, “we actually have to try to think of a plan.”

**III**

“I’ve already got a plan, silly knickers,” sneered Vyvyan haughtily.

“You?! You have a plan? How can you have a plan? You have all the wits of wet toilet tissue.”

“Fuck off Rick. Do you want to hear it or not?”

“Yes, yes I do,” Rick snorted unattractively, crossing his legs and generally looking like a dickhead, “I could do with a laugh today.”

Resisting the urge to put his head through the wall (that would only allow his psycho girlfriend to enter to room once more) Vyvyan responded, “we all need to get somewhere safe. Now this house has been breached, and we can’t stay in this room forever. We need someone who knows what’s going on, so that means we need Neil. He knew that there was bad stuff happening. We also need brains and a cool head-” (Rick smiled smarmily, glad that Vyv was finally coming to appreciate him,) “so that means we need to go find Mike.”

Rick gaped, “are you saying that I’m not-”

Without being given a chance to fully complain about his offence, Vyvyan leapt up and opened the window. “We can escape out of here. We’ll walk to the ledge to get Neil. Then we’ll use the fire escape to climb down on to the streets. Come on.”

Vyvyan swung out of the window easily. Rick on the other hand, peered out nervously.

“Come on you girl!” Vyv called from the ledge, “the fire escape isn’t far!”

“Hm, yes, well,” said Rick, “I think I’ll just wait here. Thanks. Yep, wait here. You go on.”

“Come on!” barked Vyv, growing deeply frustrated and cursing his luck at being stuck with Rick, “stop being a big girl’s blouse! Get out now!”

The groans of the undead became louder outside the bedroom door. It was only a matter of time before they would get inside.

“Fine!” cried Rick, feeling close to tears because he was so mind-numbingly terrified. He very awkwardly inched out of the window. He wanted to get on his hands and knees and crawl across the ledge, but it was too narrow. He had no choice but to stand with his back against the brick work and to slowly shuffle across. Vyv had made it look easy but that was because Vyv hadn’t the normal fear of death that most sensible humans (like Rick) possessed.

Vyvyan himself was now by his own bedroom window. He could see SPG inside smoking a doobie.

Vyv pushed the window up and called to his furry little friend, “SPG, you need to get out! Come with me.”

“Eh, what’re you on about **now** boyo?” barked SPG in a strong Glaswegian accent. He sounded angry and a bit drunk, “I’m ‘avin a nice night in!”

“It’s the end of the world,” answered Vyv reasonably, “so you’ll become some sort of zombie-hamster if you don’t get out.”

“I’ll go in ma own time!” griped SPG, “I dinae suffer fools. Last thing I want is being stuck with you and your idiot friends. Go on, I’ll look after meself.”

Vyv nodded, knowing it was no good arguing with SPG; he really didn’t suffer fools and he knew his own mind. It’s what had attracted Vyv to the hamster in the first place.

He continued across the ledge until he got to Neil’s room. He remembered how quickly Rick’s (ughh!) girlfriend had changed, and just hoped that Neil wasn’t going the same way.

He peeked through the window. Neil’s window was shut, but he could see Neil sitting cross legged on the floor. He had a sitar in his hands and had his eyes closed.

Vyv lifted up the window and whispered Neil’s name. He could feel his heart beating hard and felt a deep humiliation at the fact that he was actually quite afraid of Neil at this point.

Neil’s eyes opened, and he looked over at Vyvyan. His eyes widened. “Vyv, man, what’re doing outside my window?”

“We’re escaping!” he hissed, feeling relief that Neil wasn’t a foul-mouthed zombie just yet, “the zombies are in the house!”

“Yeah thanks to you and Rick,” he complained, “I _told_ you heavy stuff was happening and as always _no one_ listened to me. I don’t know why I even bother to breathe.”

“You won’t be breathing much longer if you sit there moaning, you need to get out with us. We’re going down the fire escape.”

“I dunno, I’d be stuck with you and Rick!”

Vyvyan had had enough of all this, and so rolled his eyes and made his way to the fire escape. If everyone else wanted to die than that was their issue, but he wasn’t going to keep waiting.

Seeing Vyv leave, Neil panicked and ran over to the window, “I’m coming, hold on!”

He clambered out of the window, his lanky body not quite balancing properly on the ledge. He gulped a few times and looked to the left only to see a terrified Rick staring at the ground beneath them.

“Rick don’t look down!” he cried, taking the advice from various shows he had seen, “you’re not supposed to!”

But it was as if Rick hadn’t seen him. Neil could hear the zombies droning on streets below and gulped. He didn’t want to make too much noise and attract them to their whereabouts, but he needed to get Rick down. Sure, he didn’t like Rick (no one did) but if Rick died it would be on his conscience. Best get someone who didn’t have a conscience involved.

“Vyv!” he called, “Rick’s too scared and won’t move!”

Vyv, who was now waiting on the metal stairs of the fire escape, sighed the sigh of the long suffering and peered over the side and at Rick.

“Come on Rick you tosser, move it!”

“I can’t, I’m…I’m just going to keep a look out. You guys go ahead!”

“Rick I’m not coming up to save you, move!”

Rick rolled his eyes and looked away. He was sweating horribly. He had never felt this kind of fear before, it almost felt as if his heart was going to burst out of his chest. It wasn’t that he was particularly afraid of heights; he was just very afraid of dying.

 _“Even if I make it down there,”_ he reasoned internally _, “the undead will get me!”_ He knew that staying on the ledge was stupid, and he even considering going back to his room, but when he told his leg to begin inching to the side once more, his body refused to obey.

By now Neil had made it to Vyv’s side on the fire escape. Vyvyan looked at Neil closely. His skin did seem sort of pale and sweaty, but Neil always looked like that.

“How’s that bite Neil?” he asked tentatively.

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt as much as it did,” answered Neil, “but thanks for asking. I didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t,” was the blunt reply, before Vyv turned his attention back on Rick. “Rick! Come! On! We’ll leave you behind! I swear to God I will! I swear to Cliff!!”

Rick gulped and bowed his head. He felt like he was going to throw up. A strong wind blasted through the streets and Rick groaned miserably, terrified of being blown off the arrow ledge. Part of him wanted to cling to the hope that they wouldn’t leave him, that despite everything they did love him and would never allow him to die. Unfortunately, life and death situations have the unfortunate side-effect of having its victim forced to look at reality very honestly. Rick did not have friends. He didn’t know why, he was the coolest person he knew, but sadly his housemates were backwards reprobates and they didn’t appreciate him. This meant that when Vyvyan screamed that he would leave Rick behind, the scrawny blond completely believed him. And even then, with the fear of abandonment (possibly Rick’s greatest fear, other than falling off a ledge and into a gruesome hoard of zombies) Rick still could not make his body move.

Hopeless desperation overcame him and for the first time in his life, The People’s Poet felt genuine suffering.

Neil and Vyvyan watched Rick experiencing this with absorbed interest, it was like watching the Northern Lights or an eclipse; it was a rarely seen phenomena.

Neil frowned, not knowing how to feel about the whole thing. He liked to think of himself as a humanist and so pitied and empathised with any other creature that was undergoing a hard time. However, the idea of pitying or empathising with Rick made him feel unpleasantly dirty and unnatural.

“Rick,” began Vyvyan, feeling like an idiot the entire time and hating every word that came out of his mouth, “Rick, if you don’t get down, you’ll never be able to have sex again. You’ll never be able to rub it in my face that you are no longer a virgin. You’ll never get to tell everyone all about it in the most pompous manner available to you. So hurry up and get down.”

“Woah, woah, woah!” cried Neil, “Rick has had sex?!”

Vyvyan ignored Neil as he began to dry wretch and instead focused all his energy on Rick. Heaven knows why, but he really didn’t want Rick to end up dead, even if it meant he had to put up with the annoying streak of snot for the rest of his life.

Rick gulped, “you know,” he said, his voice quite high pitched, “I didn’t- I didn’t really like it all that much.”

“What, the sex?”

(“Oh god!” Neil now fell to his knees, the idea of Rick boinking anyone naked making him want to commit suicide by gouging out his own brain through his eye sockets.)

Rick nodded. He closed his eyes and bowed his head _. “I might even just let go,”_ he considered, his arms and legs so tired from the stress and tension, _“If I die at least I’ll die an underwhelmed non-virgin, which is better than nothing.”_ He felt his eyes prickling as he imagined his funeral, full of devastated students from his class, Vyvyan flinging himself upon his coffin in despair.

“I’m not surprised,” Vyvyan sneered, suddenly sounding very close, “she was pretty grubby, even by our standards.”

Rick opened his eyes and saw Vyv standing beside him. The Punk grabbed Rick’s wrist and began to pull him along the ledge. Rick whimpered, his body being forced to comply.

“Never tell anyone about this,” muttered Vyv, “I will kill you.”

Rick didn’t care. His face was red from blushing, not because he was happy about Vyv holding his wrist (he hardly noticed) but just out of fear.

Vyv jumped down onto the metal staircase and, taking hold of Rick’s hand and holding the side of his hip, helped the Anarchist down.

Rick took in a few deep breaths, his skin colour returning to normal and his heart steadily slowing down. As the world came back into focus he saw that Neil had his face very close to his and was giving him a strange look.

“What do you want Hippy Freak?” he demanded in a shrill voice, causing Neil’s frown to deepen.

“I don’t see what any girl would see in you,” he said slowly, “you’re not even pretty.”

“I’m very pretty,” sneered Rick, “even Vyvyan just jumped at the opportunity to hold my hand just then!”

For this he got a swift slap around the head from Vyv.

“As soon as this is over,” said Vyv, “I’m going to kill you Rick, just as I promised.”

**IV**

The trio stood in the shadows of an alleyway beside their house. Outside the zombies ambled about groaning incessantly.

Rick watched with wide disapproving eyes shaking his head. He then turned to the others; “Thatcher’s Britain,” he stated.

The other boys ignored him, Neil was too concerned about his arm, which was aching terribly and Vyv was considering if the most violent way possible they could escape their predicament.

“We need to get to my car,” he said after a moment’s deep contemplation. “We can mow down any zombies stupid enough to get in our way!”

Rick’s eyes went impossibly wider and he scuttled up to Vyvyan with disturbing speed, “oh my god,” he gabbled, already imagining what that would look like, “that’s so cool! Yeah…let’s wun them all over! But where are we going to??”

“We need to go to the market place,” whined Neil, gesturing wildly, “we need to, like, stock up on lentils, man. Lentils and the herb, to keep us calm and chilled during this time of Great Distress.”

Rick crossed his arms, greatly unimpressed, “yes that what we need you hippy-fweak,” he scolded, stress making his speech impediment more prominent, “dwugs and hippy food. There’s no police or anything now- it’s the apocalypse! We could go into any shop and steal whatever food we like! Plus I want to keep my wits about me, I’m not touching any dwugs.”

“Oh shut up!” hissed Vyvyan, trying to be as threatening as possible whilst still being quiet, “none of this matters! We just need to get to the car first.”

Sure enough the car was on the road, surrounded by the Undead. Rick thought hard, biting his lip, “maybe we could send out a decoy,” he suggested tentatively, “maybe a sexy zombie girl to lure them away. I saw that on telly once.”

“You saw that on telly?” scoffed Vyv, “what on the Attenborough Zombie documentary?”

“N-no,” Rick had enough grace to look slightly ashamed here, “on a Bugs Bunny cartoon. He got a pretty robot girl to lure away Elmer Fudd.”

Vyv stared at him. Rick never, ever ceased to amaze Vyvyan with his bizarre sense of logic- and Vyv was the sort of person that blew up pubs he was annoyed with for not serving him and smashed through walls as a short cut from walking through a doorway.

“How are zombies anything like Elmer Fudd?”

“Well…they’re both Hunters aren’t they?”

Vyv felt hot fury boil through his insides up into his throat- but for the sake of being quiet (and safe) he swallowed his rage and instead stated calmly, “Rick, you’re an idiot, I hereby will not listen to a single stupid thing that comes out of your singularly stupid mouth.”

Rick was about to argue when Neil intervened with an insult of his own, “it’s not just stupid, but also sexist Rick.”

Rick gasped as if Neil had just slapped him around the face, “I’m not sexist! You’re sexist!”

“They’re zombie women out there,” continued Neil, “why would they chase after a sexy zombie lady?”

“Maybe they’re lesbian you small minded peon,” Rick spat, “so now you’re homophobic as well as sexist. Disgrace!”

Neil gaped, not quite understanding how suddenly he had become a homophobe and sexist when he sure that it was Rick who’d been ridiculous.

“We do need a distraction,” said Vyv turning to the others, “they’re attracted by noise right? We should make a lot of noise to lure them away from the car- then run to the car quickly.”

Rick turned to Neil, “right you, you heard the man. You need to run out into the streets screaming. Then we’ll get to the car.”

“Oh, ok,” said Neil, nodding, “sounds like a good plan…w-wait! How will _I_ get into the car?”

“What are you complaining for?” shrieked Rick with a sudden flare of rage. Vyv whacked him on the head for making noise and nearly alerting the zombie hoard to their location. “You get to die a hero,” Rick continued in an angry hiss, “a martyr, for god’s sake.”

“I don’t want to be a martyr.”

“All hippies want to be martyrs you fool.”

“No, that’s religious zealots.”

“Hippies are religious zealots- you just worship trees and lentils is all.”

Whilst the two idiots argued in the background, Vyv was putting his hands down his trousers and feeling around. It was nothing short of a miracle that he could get anything into the skinny blue jeans, but he had succeeded for, like many young men, Vyv had shoved something down there in order to make his package look at bit bigger. It was a shame to have to pull it out, but survival was now key.

He pulled out a stick of dynamite. He then got a match out of his pocket (only boys carried pens- Men carried matches) struck it against the brick wall and lit the dynamite.

Vyv held in the urge to scream out a warrior cry before flinging the dynamite to the other side of the street. There was a massive explosion (impressive really considering he’d bought the dynamite stick from some shady guy from the back of the pub) and was glad that he hadn’t kept it down his trousers much longer. The blaze that roared into life seconds later burned up a number of the zombies, who groaned more loudly before falling to their knees and then onto their faces in agony.

Other zombies, bellowing loudly, ran towards the explosions.

Rick shrieked at the explosion and hugged Neil quickly. The burning heat of the fire and ringing ears meant Neil didn’t throw him off but instead stood there stupidly with his mouth open, his long hair billowing behind him with the explosion’s force.

Vyvyan was a lot more used to explosions, and so it didn’t affect him much. He whirled round to see the two buffoons hugging one another and growled in frustration before storming over and tearing them apart.

“Come on you girls!” he screamed, “we’ve got to go now!”

Literally dragging an almost blind and deaf Rick along, all three boys scrambled out into the street. Like flies to a light, the zombies kept going into the flames, burning up and shrieking if they got too close. Rick was flung into the backseat, before Neil and Vyv jumped into the front and drove away just as a few zombies spotted them and began to make chase.

Rick rolled about in the back seat, trying to get his ears to pop. “Vyvyan!” he screamed, happy to finally be able to shout and normal volume and being doubly pleased when his shout popped his ears successfully, “that was so weckless! Some fowewaning would have been useful!”

Vyvyan looked at his mirror, he could see some zombies running, blood frothing from their mouths. _This_ _isn’t good_ , he thought dimly. He pushed down further onto the gas, swinging around road corners leaving thick, black tyre stains on the ground.

“Where are you taking us?” whined Neil, “ugggh, I think I need a doctor, man.”

“We are going to the corner shops,” answered Vyv as if this was perfectly reasonable.

“What?” spluttered Rick, leaning forward in the car to put his head between the two front seats, “why?? Do you want to pick up some chocolates or something? It’s the apocalypse! We should go down to my parent’s house. It’s in the country.” He sat back and crossed his arms, looking out into the burning and bloodied streets of London. He seemed a lot calmer now that they were in the car. “It’s a bit bourgeois, you know,” he shrugged embarrassed, “but it has a gate and a large fence and Fluffy and Mimsy guard the door.”

“Fluffy and Mimsy?” Neil frowned.

“The dogs. They belonged to mummy.”

“I don’t care Rick,” bit out Vyvyan with unnecessary anger, “we need an adult with us! Look at all this! We’ll be dead soon unless we get help. That means we need Mr Balowski or Mike. I vote Mike.”

“Mike isn’t an adult,” sneered Rick, leaning forwards again. He hated how much Vyv loved Mike and resented the idea that he couldn’t take care of himself.

“He’s the closest thing we have,” argued Vyv, “and he is at the shops buying a newspaper. So that’s where we’re going. We can go to your poncy house afterwards and only if he agrees to it!”

Rick sat back and scowled, jealousy and envy roiling in his stomach. Neil pressed his forehead against the cool window. He felt ill. The heavy, negative vibes were getting him down…not that anyone even cared…

They drove through London. The rats climbed out of the sewer and sat on the fences with cats all howling ‘London Calling’ by the Clash which made Rick roll his eyes because it was insipid.

Few humans seemed to be alive. Instead the streets were filled with the undead. It was like the end of the Michael Jackson Thriller video but without the cool dance moves.

“How have they gotten so many people already?” muttered Rick. The boys were slowly getting used to speaking quietly.

“I think it’s been going on for a while Rick,” answered Vyv, feeling oddly sensible and hating it, “and we just didn’t notice.”

“It should have been reported on the news or something,” Rick glanced at Neil, “He’s out cold. How will we get him to a doctor when everyone is dead?” Rick suddenly let out a gasp of horror, “If everyone is dead, who will listen to my poems?”

Vyv ignored the latter half of Rick’s ramblings and instead cast an anxious eye over Neil. “Rick, you ever watch zombie films?”

“No,” the poet huffed, sitting back in his seat with his arms closed, “no I don’t. I don’t watch any of those Hammer Horror type shows. I watch stuff that is intellectual and stimulating.”

Vyv considered telling him that in the films, the bitten would soon become zombies. But, this wasn’t a film. Also, Rick was already very on edge and something of a maniac anyway, so he didn’t want him acting crazier than usual.

As they approached the corner shops, they could see a haphazard blockade, made up of various boxes and large bags of discount pasta and rice.

Men and women holding home-made weapons stood behind its perimeter. Numerous bodies lay on the floor outside the blockade.

The car slowed and anxiously they got out, Vyvyan shaking Neil awake before doing so.

“No one gets in,” shouted one man as the boys looked up at the blockade. They recognised him as the owner of the dry cleaners.

“What bigotwy is this?” shrieked an outraged Rick, “we have every wight to enter!”

“You might be infected.”

“ _Actually_ , I have had all my jabs before coming to uni,” he argued.

“Infected with the zombie disease!” cried the man in frustration.

“Disease?” Vvyvan stared at Rick and Neil.

“Oh god, you can catch it?” whispered Rick.

“Didn’t you,” began Neil, slowly backing away from Rick and standing closer to Vyv, “have sex with a girl who became a zombie?”

Rick paled, “w-wait…no…no,” he looked at the guards with wide, pale blue eyes, “no I’m a virgin. Never had sex. I mean, look at me, I’m no catch. Who would sleep with me?”

Vyvyan felt his stomach clench a little at that, but he brushed it off remembering how Rick was, overall, insufferably arrogant and this was definitely a ploy at survival rather than any genuine low self-esteem.

“He doesn’t mean that,” he sneered automatically.

“Yeah,” joined in Neil, “he did have sex with a girl and she did become a zombie. Rick, man, you need to stay away from us. I’m sorry but you are sick!”

Rick’s face became white with fear, glancing between his two former housemates.

“No…I don’t…I mean _I_ _did_ … but,” he looked at them with desperation in his eyes.

Vyvyan turned to the people on the barricade, “look, he isn’t showing any signs, just let us in! We have a friend in there.”

“What friend?”

“Mike.”

The barricade all began to smile, “oh, yeah, Mike,” one woman cheered, “he’s our leader actually. How would people as uncool as you know Mike?”

“We’re his housemates,” Neil answered, “I warned him about the malaise spreading across our city! I was the first to tell everyone to stay indoors and to keep quiet.”

The dry-cleaner gasped, “are you a prophet?” he stage-whispered.

Neil did sort of look like a prophet, with his flowing hair, a braid with dying flowers woven into it, a weird smell emanating from his earth-coloured clothes.

Rick, feeling tenuous control of the situation slipping away, huffed and put his hands on his hips, “look this is all ridiculous! We’re out here, in the open! Just let us in! Neil isn’t a prophet and I’m not infected! None of us are.”

The woman who spoke earlier gestured to one of the younger men on the barricade, who ran off, presumably to get Mike.

“We make no decision until Mike arrives,” she stated flatly.

“What if we get eaten?!” Rick shrieked, making Vyvyan look nervously around them in case zombies were being attracted to them from all the noise.

“Then too bad,” the woman sneered, “you can return to your zombie girlfriend!”

“Oh god,” Rick curled his lip, “I bet you all read _The Daily Mail_ don’t you? Or even better, _The Sun_! To make such accusations about me so quickly! Automatically believing the first random,” he pointed wildly at Neil, “who comes your way! Just because I made long, ardent love to a girl who was a little bit different from the rest of us, you decide to cast me out of the fold! Prejudiced scum! Typical sheep! Even worse, following Mike! A uni student who’s no smarter than anyone else! God, why must I always be the smartest person in the vicinity? Why must it always fall upon me to try and educate the proles?”

“Oh shut up you idiot!” shouted another man from the barricade.

“The first thing you did on the eve of the apocalypse was create more borders!” screamed Rick in a rage, “and have found more ways of splitting people up! Now, when we need to stick together. I am a prophet if anything! I speak to words of Ghandi and Martin Luther and Christ and Cliff and Muhammad and the Budda! We should all be together!”

“What?” sneered a man, “together with the zombies? Are you mental?”

“NO!” Screamed Rick, “no and I do not appreciate your ableism!”

(“My _what_?”)

“I’m saying we should stick together, regardless of colour or creed or who we had sex with!”

“Shut up Rick!” Vyvyan hissed, partially because he didn’t want any zombies turning up and partially because he could see Rick was destroying whatever chance he had of getting into the protected area.

Rick ignored him, instead shrieking, “you self-serving, power-wanking fascists!”

“Are those the dulcet tones of Rick I hear?”

The tension was immediately snapped by the appearance of Mike on the barricade. He was wearing a white suit (somehow still clean) and a pair of sunglasses despite the fact that it was night.

“Let us in Mike,” demanded Vyvyan, “we’re all sick of listening to ruddy Rick screaming insensibly.”

Mike nodded, “they’re friends, of a sort,” he said to the men and women around him, “they can enter.”

“What?” asked the dry cleaner, “even the screaming one?”

“He’ll endanger the group,” hissed one of the women.

The people began to mutter amongst themselves mutinously.

Mike, who was not very good at standing up to peer pressure, amended, “hm, well just Vyv and Neil then. Sorry Rick.”

“You can’t be serious?” exclaimed Rick, his voice curiously high and thin as Neil made his way to the barricade.

“You’re, like, too loud man,” Neil answered seriously, “we can’t handle your negative vibes.”

Rick looked at Vyvyan helplessly.

Vyvyan himself was struggling. On the one hand, he really did want to go and talk to Mike. Mike was still their best chance of survival, especially now that he had a mini-army on his side.

Neil was possibly infected, having been bitten, but Vyv wasn’t prepared to leave him outside. He’d just have a quiet word with Mike and they’d just have to keep an eye on him.

As for Rick, he didn’t like the idea of leaving him out in the open either. However, the chances of them surviving together was low as Rick was so loud he’d inevitably bring zombies upon them eventually, and Rick himself was likely to end up being this loud as Vyv murdered him for being an annoying twat.

He was at a crossroads.

He could feel it.

One of those defining moments that make you discover what kind of person you are.

He looked at Rick, pale and small and slim and weirdly quiet, watching him intently, and then the people at the barricade; Mike standing atop of it like some sort of short, dark and unsexy Enjolras, surrounded by dirty and tired adults desperate to have someone in charge.

One was a weirdo and the other was a community. One was almost certain death and the other had a spark of a chance of surviving at least the night.

Vyv was punk. In many ways the end of the world wasn’t a big deal as he wasn’t too fond of society and its structures in the first place; from capitalism right down to conventional standards of beauty.

Ideally, he’d fuck off the lot of them and go his own way, finding a safe little spot and setting up his own new world order.

But that wasn’t possible right now, because as well as being punk, Vyv was a realist. And, realistically, if he hoped to survive he needed to be part of a functional group of people.

He turned to Rick, his face sober.

“Look, Rick-”

“Don’t leave me.”

Vyvyan bit his bottom lip just for a moment. Rick looked very real in that moment than the usual cartoon he presented himself as. He was scared, of being alone and being abandoned. Vyvyan understood that fear; he’d been similar until he turned around eight or nine and became self-sufficient. Rick was not at that stage yet.

“Rick, this can’t go on!”

“I’m sorry. Don’t leave me.” The apology came quick and functional. Almost no emotion. Just as if he were stating a fact. It was the most surprising thing Rick had ever said.

“Look, I’ll talk to Mike. Ok? I’ll talk to him and come find you.”

Rick was shaking his head slowly, backing away.

Silhouettes were in the fires in the distance. Zombies were approaching. The old shriek of the psycho ones could be heard, reaching out like bird calls.

“Take the car,” offered Vyv suddenly. He felt cold and frightened, not for himself, but for Rick. It was all too horribly real. It was too much. He was aware that he was potentially sentencing Rick to death. This wasn’t their usual hi-jinx, it was officially a horror. Why had the genre changed?

“You can actually take my car,” he offered, “hide in it. Drive it. I’ll find you after I’ve convinced Mike.”

He was moving away from Rick, without realising it he’d begun to walk backwards towards the barricade.

Rick stood still and shell shocked.

“Take the car.” Vyv called, feeling that this was important. His car was his baby. The most important thing to him. And he was giving it away, to Rick of all people, he desperately needed Rick to understand the importance of this.

He threw his keys, them landing at Rick’s feet.

Rick finally turned his eyes away from Vyv’s to look at the keys. And with their mutual gaze broken, Vyv was then able to turn and run to the barricade. He clambered over quickly and with more grace than Neil had, and, one on the other side, continued to walk. He didn’t want to see Rick or the others. He just kept walking.

“Friendship is the most important relationship you’ll have in your lifetime. It’s about loyalty and dedication and honesty. Because of this situation, we’re going to lose a lot of friends over the next few weeks…if not days. Look to the right of you. Now to the left. You’re comrades. Brothers and sisters in arms. Whatever strife or arguments there were between you before this evening, put them to one side. Make peace with one another for who knows what the next few hours will bring?” The tin of beans looked over the shelves where all the food items stood, brave and stiff-upper lipped. The corner shop was near empty. They’d lost a lot of comrades since the Outbreak.

General Beans turned away from the soldiers down the food aisles and looked out the window, watching the hapless humans led by Mike.

Down on the shelves, the food products began to talk amongst themselves.

“I wonder who will go next,” muttered Vegetable Soup Tin to Bag of Pasta.

“Definitely the breads, the poor bastards,” she responded.

Down on the third shelf, the last of the bread tribe sat together singing a haunting song not dissimilar to whales.

“The ones near the back will make it to the end I reckon,” Vegetable Soup grunted. At the back of the shelf were tins of black-eyed peas and lentils. They had been safe so far, no human hands grasping at them. They curled into the shadows, watching the others with hooded eyes. Some of them had lived on these shelves for years. They had the patience and wisdom of age.

**V**

Vyvyan had never really known stress. He knew anger and resentment. He knew boredom, rage, sorrow.

But not stress.

He was actually quite a chill guy, all things considered.

But the night had bought about a lot of new feelings for all the boys. Rick was learning suffering. Neil was learning that he could be cruel and self-serving.

It was uncomfortable all round for everyone.

Whilst Vyv had fled the scene in an unusual display of cowardice, Neil had watched a stunned Rick climb into the beat-up car and drive away.

He had done so with two, conflicting emotions. One being a leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach. Not guilt; worry and concern. Rick was stupid and naïve. He wasn’t going to make it. But the other thing was a warm fuzzy feeling in his head and a slight lightness in his heart; someone who had been very nasty to him over the years was leaving and unlikely to come back. It was freedom. He’d lost one of his bullies. Furthermore, he had been chosen over Rick. It made sense, as he had some skills (cooking and cleaning) where Rick had none. Still, he’d always thought of himself as a bit of a spare part in the life of the boys; Rick and Vyv always circled one another as the main characters of the show and Mike seemed to be in his own show all together, just gracing theirs with the odd cameo.

But when it came to the crux of it, Rick had been outed and Neil invited into society. It was a nice change. An unexpected treat.

So he should have known, really, that it was all fleeting. Neil had never had good luck in his life. Well, his adult life. His childhood had been quite nice actually. His parents had been loving and kind. They were also quite wealthy. Neither boy knew this, but Neil’s parents ran in some of the same circles as Rick’s. Not friends, but acquaintances who shared similar annual incomes and, unbeknown to them, the same problem of having a son who’d completely rejected their way of life. Whereas Rick’s parents were snide and condescending about it, Neil’s had been supportive, even if they didn’t really understand it.

Rick and Neil’s parents had died in the same place on the same day. Where Rick had loudly complained about his inheritance, Neil had quietly cried. Either no one had noticed his tears, or they hadn’t cared.

Perhaps that was the day, unbeknownst to anyone even him, that his heart had hardened slightly. Or maybe it was the three University years of bullying that had made him so disloyal.

All Neil knew, in that moment of stress and pressure, was that he disliked Rick the most. He didn’t hate him, but he strongly disliked him. Disliked him enough to watch him drive into the zombie-soaked city in nothing but a beat-up car, and only feel the basics of empathy and sympathy.

He scratched his bitemark and let out a moan of a yawn. God he was tired.

Rick drove quickly through the side streets. He’d turned off the main roads almost immediately because they were so jammed with cars and the dead. He swerved through the debris, his hands gripped tight to the steering wheel. He needed to get out of the city and quickly. He didn’t know what was worse, the slow zombies who could swarm his car or the fast zombies who would chase after him.

Right now there was so much noise from survivors running and screaming and the flames of the fire they had started now spreading over the city, that the fast zombies were distracted by all the noise. The slow ones he was able to run over, as they weren’t in large packs. Yet.

“ _The fast ones must have been people who had ADHD or something,”_ he thought to himself. Vyv would be a fast zombie. Neil slow; open-mouthed and drooling as he stirred a pot of lentils for all eternity. Well… until his arm rotted off. “ _Because I’m so calm and considering I’d probably be slow as well.”_ He imagined himself, his eyes a sightless, off-shade blue, standing on a box and droning incoherently, a scrap of paper with one of his poems in his hands. He shuddered, the image too disconcerting, and switched his thoughts.

Rick slowed just a fraction on seeing a small person up ahead. A child. Just… standing in the road. Obviously a zombie. Drooling and groaning and staring into nothing. Sweat prickled onto his forehead. He remembered, suddenly, when he was learning to drive with his father. It was a dreadful experience. His father mocking him and screaming at him in turns. Making him feel stupid. And then, the moment when there was a pigeon in the road, Rick had slowed.

“Don’t slow you idiot!” His dad had barked.

Rick had been forced to run it over. A bump and a popping sound and a flurry of feathers. His father laughing and him trying to. But he couldn’t. Once home he’d thrown up.

He couldn’t go around the girl because there wasn’t space, and he didn’t have time to think of a better plan. Rick picked the speed back up and clenched his teeth and the car rolled over the small girl. It was probably better for her this way. And he couldn’t stop, because the moment he did, he’d be swarmed. But he knew, he just knew, that he was never going to forget the feel of the car going over her body. He knew that it was going to stay with him, as soon as he was out of survival mode. If he ever got out of survival mode.

The quickest way home normally would be the motorway, but undoubtedly that would be jammed now. So that left him the country roads. The “scenic” route home. Problem was, that way would be badly lit and full of narrow bendy roads. Also, he didn’t know the way home through the narrow country lanes. On the rare occasions he had gone home from uni, it had been by train.

He began to route around in the glove box, hopefully Vyv had some sort of map. The car began to swerve. Rick was surprisingly good at focusing on one thing. However, once he began to multi-task that’s where things went awry.

“Fucking Thatcher,” he muttered through gritted teeth, “her fault for fucking up schools. Would’ve been smarter if she wasn’t in power…”

The car swerving slowed it, and so Rick, staring directly in front but actually concentrating more on his hand looking for a map (something wet and squishy was in the glove box….ew) he didn’t notice a screaming zombie flying in from the side. He cried out in horror as a bloody faced man leapt onto the front of the car. Rick couldn’t see the road. He stepped on the gas pedal, hurtling through the street, driving over things, hitting things, all as this man turned monster beat on the front window.

“ _It’s going to smash he’s going to get in!”_

Suddenly the car smashed into something. The zombie hurtled off the front bonnet, screeching as it smashed into a truck in front of them. It landed heavily, its bones crunching wetly, and fell to the ground almost comically.

Rick had had his seat belt on, but was still hurt. His face was bruised and bloodied from where he’d still smacked the steering wheel. His chest was in agony from where the seat belt had tried to tighten.

They’d driven into a Children Crossing sign. The front of the car was damaged, but the engine still worked and the window was intact.

Groaning in pain, Rick restarted the engine. The constant groan of the slow, swarming zombies could be heard getting louder. They were coming, attracted by the noise. As he kept trying to start the engine, ever aware that he may have to get out and run for it, Rick realised he hated everyone. Everyone. Hated them all. He hated his flatmates, stupid Vyv and stupid Mike and stupid Neil, he hated his parents, his uni classmates who never invited him to drinks down the pub, he hated his older sister, he hated the government, the Tories, Labour, the Lib-dems, he hated the Right and he hated the Left, he hated black people and Asian people and hated white people. He hated his parent’s house.

“ _I’ll find somewhere, far away from everyone, and never speak to another living soul. Kill anyone who comes close. And if I don’t make it, I’ll kill myself before becoming one of them.”_ So ferocious and genuine was this resolve it actually scared him a little. But it was surely a sign from god that it was the right thing to do because the engine re-ignited and he was able to, slowly at first but then faster, pull away from the encroaching hoard.

**VI**

The fires of London spread across the city. Survivors scrambled to escape the city. The underground was full of monsters, snarling and running, frothing at the mouth, or groaning and shambling through the shadows. Smaller factions of humans met up with others to form larger packs, the natural disposition of humans seeking out other humans, the crisis too terrible for the inevitable in-fighting to start yet. A group of punks hijacked the speakers of an indoor shopping centre, blasting Anarchy in the UK out of its speakers. Shrieking with laughter as they fled, the song loud enough to be heard over the screams and flames.

Some distance away Mike stood with his followers. He wasn’t sure how many of them there were, which seemed to be something a leader should know. However, he had ended up being their leader somewhat on accident and really he just wanted to flirt with a girl named Charlotte and, if going nowhere with her, her slightly less attractive friend Sharon.

Currently, both Charlotte and Sharon and a number of others were outside the convenience store trying to get a radio to work.

It was white noise until:

“There, there! A voice!”

It was scratchy at best, and the voice on the radio sounded scared.

“Again, the Houses of Parliament are completely over-run. There’s no word of the Prime Minister. It seems that no one is in charge!”

“This is what those damned anarchists wanted all this time!” shouted Mr. Johnson, who owned the fish and chip shop. He turned to Mike, “we shouldn’t have them here! You need to get rid of them! If they want anarchy then they can go have it on their own!”

“All right,” sighed Mike, “I’ll go chat with him. But I’m pretty sure he’s just in it for the aesthetics.”

Charlotte frowned, “um… is your other friend just into Zombie aesthetics?”

They all turned to see what she was looking at.

A few feet away stood Neil, his head tilted towards the dark sky. His mouth was open and a very long, low groan was being emitted. He was holding a pot in his hands. His face was one of one who had seen the darkness of the universe and could no longer look away.

“Well,” said Mike, “he died the way he lived.” He turned to the others, “at least he’s a slow one; much easier to beat to death.”

It was about ten minutes later that Vyv saw a crowd of humans marching past him, Neil’s severed head on the end of a broom handle. People were screaming like warriors.

Mike waddled up to a stunned Vyv.

“Things got a bit out of hand Vyv.”

“You can say that again,” replied the punk faintly. He turned to Mike, “he was our mate Mike. He was a ruddy sad-sack, but our mate.”

“He turned Zombie. But I’m not Herod’s wife, I didn’t say to cut his head off, I wanted to just beat him to death.”

Neil’s mouth was still open and his eyes were blinking.

“I think they’re undead,” said Vyv, watching this with concern and slowly backing away, “I don’t think you can kill them. Can’t kill something twice…”

At that moment Neil’s face scowled demonically, the mouth moving though no sound was coming out.

“Oh no,” Mike cried, “the babes! Charlotte! RUN!”

“You wha-?” said Charlotte when suddenly, powered through some sort of malevolent entity or pure hate, Neil’s head launched itself off the broom handle. Now on the ground it began to bounce around biting the ankles of whoever it could catch.

Mike ran into the crowd after the girls, but Vyvyan had had enough. He was sick of the whole thing. This was the problem with people, they couldn’t let go of the power structures that held them down and now they were going to build new ones, which involved murdering flatmates and parading around with their angry heads. God, he sounded like Rick.

As Vyvyan walked away he found himself feeling quite sad about Neil. It wasn’t so much that Neil died, which was a bit shit, but moreso that he had turned into an angry zombie. Not one of the chill ones ambling about groaning. It was a shame, in a way. He would track down his car, which would lead to Rick. Sure he was an annoying snot-twister, but he was all right in his own way. They’d go to his house, watch telly, try and forget the whole nightmare going on outside.

He was looting inside the convenience store, ripping off some pipe that he could use as a weapon and wrapping some gaffer tape around the end as a handle, when he felt something biting at his ankles. He looked down and saw a furious, silent Neil biting at him. Luckily Vyv was wearing his boots and no hippy teeth were going to pierce through those.

Vyvyan thought for a moment before grabbing a large clear plastic box filled with toys, tipping the toys out and then popping Neil’s head in the box. Neil’s mouth opened into what was likely an angry roar, but with no lungs or ability to make sound, it was just a sort of angry, howling face. He popped the role of gaffa tape on Neil’s head and carried his pipe in the other hand.

As the pair travelled out of the compound, climbing over the barricade, Vyyan noticed how heavy Neil’s head was, but took it on the chin; it was just one of those things. Thy had travelled only for ten minutes or so before they came across Neil’s hapless body, ambling about confused without its head.

Vyv smiled, “see?” he said to the head, which looked as hopeful as a zombie could, “no need to go mental biting everyone. Everything works out in the end.”

He took out Neil’s head. It kept trying to bite him so he took the gaffa tape and tapped up Neil’s mouth. Then, with much effort, was eventually able to get the head onto the lanky idiot’s body. It sort of turned into a dark comedy skit when the furious head kept falling off and the body kept being confused, dancing around looking for it. Eventually Vyv got the head on and tapped the neck so it stayed on. It was a bit wobbly but ok.

As soon as Neil’s head was (somewhat) firmly attached, the eyes mellowed and the angry look vanished. The glassy mournful look returned. Yep, that was Neil. Vyv ripped the gaffa tape off his mouth and then swiftly legged it, not wanting the newly unified zombie to bite him.

Still though, as he walked through the burning ashes of London, he felt ok. Neil had his head, Mike was chasing girls. They weren’t together, but the world seemed a little more at rights again.

**VII**

Rick had reached the outskirts of the city and was in the countryside. He hadn’t seen any zombies for about twenty minutes. He had turned off the main road and now was facing the dark country lanes. It was pitch black.

He wasn’t sure if zombies could see. If he turned on the car lights and carried on driving, would the light attract attention? Or was it the sound? The car was pretty loud since the crash, grumbling and cussing Rick out the whole journey.

The lights of the main road behind him, Rick stared at the darkness ahead. He could wait until morning. He was exhausted, his ribs and chest aching since the crash. His whole body stressed and tense. He needed sleep as it was still many hours before he would arrive at Mother and Father’s house. Plus, there were no zombies about, and even if some turned up, if he was snuggled away in the backseat would they even notice him? They didn’t seem interested in any vehicles on the road by what he had seen.

But what if they could smell him? What if, whilst sleeping, the screaming ones smashed into the car? What if the groaning ones overwhelmed it, making it impossible for him to escape?

Rick let out a very quiet sigh and lay his head on the steering wheel. He wanted to scream and kick the car and shout up at the sky before sitting on the hood of the car and writing a poem. But he couldn’t. Because that would kill him.

He could hear his Father sneering at him: “only women cry!” he would say.

Rick squeezed his eyes shut and thought. The car was over-heating and damaged. He needed sleep. Worst case scenario, the car would break down. In the day, he could walk. But at night, trapped in the dark and potentially having called zombies to him, he wouldn’t last five minutes.

He heaved himself back up with a lot of effort and drove the car as slowly as possible further into the darkness. He then cut the engine. Rick’s body ached horribly and everything took a long time. He undid the seatbelt and put the chair back slightly. He’d stay in the front seat in case he woke up and needed to drive quickly. Hopefully, with him lying in the car he’d just look dead to any passing zombie able to see in the dark. If it was a case that they could hear heartbeats or something, well, he would have to take his chances.

Rick allowed himself to cry for quite a bit then, mainly in defiance of his Father. Mostly out of just unhappiness. Slowly, he fell asleep.

He dreamed of running over little girls and of rejection.

During the night the trees of the forests whispered to one another about the fall of man. They all agreed that an extinction of one of the Moving-Types was long over-due. And besides, those bastards kept cutting them down and setting them on fire and peeing on them. Good riddance.

Rick woke from a fitful sleep cold, sore and hungry. He even missed Neil’s lentils. Moving in more slowly than he had last night, he pulled the car seat up and tried to turn on the engine. It chuffed and coughed but would not turn on.

Rick gave up, not wanting to make too much noise for too long.

“I can’t walk,” he muttered, “I’m like a broken machine.”

The car decided that it was a broken machine also and wasn’t going anywhere. It would wait for its True Master before going to Carhalla.

Remembering last night, he painfully leaned over to open the glove box. After rooting around all the stupid shit Vyv had in there he finally found an A to Z map. Suddenly he desperately wished he’d paid attention during all those tedious Geography lessons at school. Who would have thought that map reading skills would be this imperative to know?

He found the right page and slowly figured out roughly where his parent’s village was. He just needed to get to the village, and he would know his way from there. There was a shorter way than the country lanes, which looped around and around. He could cut through the forests. However, again thinking back to being fourteen and in Geography, he figured the contour lines on the map were showing that the land between where he was and his parents’ village was uphill. It also looked like a stream cut across the land as well. He’d have to cross it and there was no official bridge. Hopefully it would be small and easy to cross.

Rick undid his shirt buttons and looked at his chest. There was some swelling and quite a bit of bruising. Every breath hurt, especially on the inhale. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. The sky was dark with smoke from the city fires still raging. He could hear the groaning of the undead in the distance. He wasn’t sure if they’d stay in the city or travel, but he couldn’t risk being here if they did start to move out.

Never had a car door felt as heavy as the one he had to swing open. The pain was excruciating as he climbed out the car; he almost threw up. Taking a few steady breaths, map in hand, Rick began to make shuffled into the woods. He would have to make it. In the village was a pharmacy where he could get pain killers. And when he finally got home he’d be able to rest. He tried not to think about any zombies being in the village or his home. He just couldn’t face that dilemma.

Meanwhile, Vyv was hot on his tail having walked through the night with a disturbing amount of focus. He had been able to track his car just by following his gut; he and his car were linked that way. If Vyv had a soulmate, it was his car.

He began to realise something was wrong when the soundtrack came on and it was Mozart’s Requim in D Minor. Tragedy was afoot.

And there it was!

His car.

Smashed front.

Scratches on the side.

Left on the side of a road.

“Oh god,” whispered Vyv, horror shaking him to his very core, “no….no!”

He ran to it, falling to his knees and embracing it the best he could, “my old friend!! My love!! What happened to you?”

The car coughed. It could not speak, but it was at peace now. As the soprano solo soared through the air the spirit of the car was lifted into its very own vehicular heaven.

It was typical Rick really; he’d had Vyv’s most beloved item and hadn’t even lasted one night without killing it. Well, now Vyv was going to kill Rick. And luckily, Rick had left footprints in the mud of the forest.

Rick was learning to walk quietly. Gently moving branches. Not stepping on twigs. He moved slowly but almost silently. He even managed to withhold how much pain he was feeling in his chest, not crying out or getting angry. A few angry tears fell now and then, the odd grunt of pain, but that was it. The woods were thick and full of unnatural noise. Rick wasn’t an outdoors man, but he knew the forest didn’t have the sounds of low groans or the odd shriek of distant profanity; he knew the zombies were about and they were in the woods. Maybe from the city, maybe from the towns. Who knew how far the zombie curse had spread?

It was through this new awareness of silence and constant fear that Rick had also become better at listening. He could hear that someone was chasing him and getting closer. He could hear the footsteps thudding through the mud, the crashing and snapping of foliage.

Human or zombie?

Didn’t matter.

He couldn’t fight; he was weak, tired and injured. The best he could do was hide. If he got caught and killed, well, at least he died trying to live.

Taking shallow breaths to try and reduce the pain in his chest and lungs, Rick hobbled as quickly as he could to hide behind a large tree surrounded by a tangled mess of thorns. They scratched at his clothes but he was able to push through only mildly scratched.

He peeked around the thick trunk and watched as Vyvyan came stomping by like an angry rhino, his focus on the ground.

Rick had two simultaneous thoughts: one was him realising he hadn’t considered covering his footprints and what a dumb, fucking twat he was, and the other was a more animalistic relief and fear that Vyvyan was there with him.

Stepping out from behind the bush the boys stared at one another.

Vyvyan felt his anger drain away; a phenomena that had never happened around Rick before. Usually it was the other way around. But, in this forest, Rick looked so small and so pale and so sick and so scared Vyvyan felt nothing but fear of Rick’s behalf.

Rick moved first, gently edging his way out of the thorns and nettles, pausing momentarily as there was an animalistic shriek of, “fucking bastards, I’ll skullfuck your souls!” in the distance. When he was in front of Vyv he muttered, “don’t hurt me. I’m sorry about your car.” He was cringing slightly already and Vyv could hear his breathing was laboured.

“I can’t have you get mad and hit me,” Rick insisted, “do you understand?”

Vyv nodded unnerved by Rick’s quietness and by it being clear as day that he was very injured and no way could Vyv be the slightest bit rough with him. The whole dynamic was off.

“Going to your mom and dad’s then?” Vyv said as nonchalantly but as quietly as possible.

“Yeah…c’mon…”

They hiked in complete silence. It was awful. The sky opened up and it began to rain. Light but persistent, making their clothes sodden and their skin damp and itchy all over. The mud sunk into Rick’s trainers, making his walking even slower. It was all uphill, adding extra pressure. Vyv ended up holding his arm to help him persevere through it all. It was the ledge outside their student flat all over again. Same tension.

The slope became wetter and wetter. It was like trudging through a bog. Rick had to stop now and then and was leaning on Vyv more heavily. Vyv was surprisingly patient with this, which Rick was grateful for. He’d never known pain like this. He wanted to just lie down and die, but he knew that he couldn’t do that. He just couldn’t.

At last the land levelled, they were at the top. Rick opened up his map and for the first time in four hours, spoke.

“The village is here,” he pointed on the map, his voice soft and wispy and tired. He was rocking ever so slightly in the circular motion, as if his balance was off kilter. Vyv hated it. “But my family home is there somewhere. I know the way from here without the map.”

“Why are we going through the village?” asked Vyv staring at the map, “we can just turn off here and get to your house that way.”

“I need painkillers.”

“We’ll get to the house and I’ll go get you painkillers if there aren’t any in there.”

Rick pulled a face then, even through the pain he could pull an obnoxious, disbelieving expression. Vyv rolled his eyes, “you can’t go through the village in your condition. I’ll be faster alone. You just need to rest. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

The face became more obnoxious.

“Ok, almost a doctor. Come on.”

They walked slowly but steadily. The rain petered off and the trees became sparse and further apart. Soon they were on a man-made dirt path. Rick directed them automatically, knowing the way. He was practically slumped on Vyv now stumbling slightly as they walked.

“There was meant to be a stream.”

“What?”

“There was meant to be a stream,” Rick repeated, lifting his head slightly, “we didn’t pass it.”

“Maybe it was overrun, that’s why it was so wet.”

“Yeah…yeah…probably…”

The roof of the house appeared on the horizon and bit by bit the rest of it revealed itself. It was like reaching heaven. There were still sounds of zombies, but they were far in the distance now. Rick’s parents lived pretty far away from anyone.

Vyv could imagine they were probably pretty unpleasant people, judging by what a brat their son could be. It seemed Rick’s only positive points (which Vyv would never admit to him having) were formed out of his own political and social ideas and were against those of his parents. Whereas Rick’s snobbery, entitlement and naivete were fostered and encouraged by his parents, as far as Vyv could tell.

They reached a gate and on opening it made a terrible racket. The sound of dogs could be heard.

“Rick?” he looked down and saw that Rick was practically passed out on his shoulder, “Rick!”

The barking became louder and Vyv felt himself freeze as two Doberman came into view. Vyv actually felt a bit bad about doing this but he did not want to get killed by dogs, not after surviving formal education, university and zombies. He shook Rick awake, the man crying out in agony.

“I’m sorry, but the dogs.”

Rick looked up with blurry eyes, then smiled, “Fluffy, Mimsy!”

The dogs ceased barking and their tails wagged, bounding over to Rick with joy. Vyv had never known any living creatures could respond to positively to the snot bag.

“Come on,” he said almost fondly, heaving the blond up, “let’s get you in bed.”

Vyv piled pillows high on Mother and Father’s bed in the master bedroom whilst Rick washed his face and armpits. His crotch was another ‘key area’ that needed a clean but he honestly just couldn’t bend enough to deal with it.

Vyv helped him change into nightclothes, which was excruciatingly embarrassing because Vyv wasn’t teasing him at all. Somehow his quiet professionalism and lack of comment about Rick’s knickers or skinny body being on show made the tension between them worse. At last he was in nightclothes and with a sigh he lay on the bed. Well, sort of. Vyv was forcing him to sit up, but it was comfortable.

The punk scurried off to find pain killers whilst Rick slowly faded into sleep. Though perhaps it was less ‘fading into sleep’ than actually ‘passing out from pain and exhaustion’.

The house wasn’t as fancy as Vyv had expected. He assumed it would be some sort of mini-mansion, gaudy and ugly. But it wasn’t. It was a slightly larger than usual cottage and probably quite old. It made him think of those old Jane Austen adaptions on the BBC. It was heavily cluttered as well, ornaments and books and paintings. The house gave the impression of slightly posh hoarders who moved from one obsession to another. The kitchen was pretty filthy but he found some painkillers in a drawer. It wouldn’t be enough. Rick would need something heavier. The floors were also covered with blood stains. Outside were bits and pieces of people. It seems Mimsy and Fluffy had continued to keep the house safe, tearing apart what Vyv hoped was only zombies. He could see them outside now, tongues hanging out as they surveyed the area. Trained to protect the house they had done so, even with Rick’s parents being dead. Vyv wondered who had been looking after them, if anyone. How had they fed? He looked at the body parts, trying to see any bite marks that indicated eating and not just tearing.

Vyv tried the taps and was relieved to see they were still working. The apocalypse was relatively new, so maybe not everything was stopped yet. He took deep gulps of water gratefully. Then he made up a cool glass of squash for Rick. Water would be better but knowing Rick was essentially a ten-year-old he’d probably complain. He mixed in a couple of painkillers hoping it would ease Rick’s pain a little. He’d seen the bruising and so realised that Rick most likely had cracked ribs. That would put him out for… at least six weeks. He be bed ridden for a while too. The house needed to remain secure. Whilst he could count on Mimsy and Fluffy to deal with zombies, he wasn’t so sure about humans. Humans were smart.

Back upstairs, he saw Rick asleep in bed. He was pale and sweaty. But his heartrate was stable.

Vyv sat on an ottoman at the end of the bed. He didn’t particularly fancy looking after Filthy-knickers Rick for the next month or so, but this was a new world. One where they’d have to stick together and work together to survive.

Plus, Rick knew how to handle Mimsy and Fluffy.


End file.
